Management of commands generated through user interface dialogs

• US 8,015,505 B1
• Filed: 01/07/2009
• Issued: 09/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Philbrick, Kenneth, Horns, Roey, Williamson, David E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Huynh; Ba
• Application Number:
  US12/350,167
• Time in Patent Office: 972 Days
• Field of Search: 715/802, 715/804, 715/808, 715/809
• US Class Current: 715/809
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

Systems and techniques manage commands generated through user interface dialogs. In general, in one implementation, commands resulting from interaction with controls of a dialog are received, and first and second commands are distinguished. The first command is held upon receipt to be performed later, and the second command is passed through the dialog to be performed upon receipt. Both of the commands are retained in a command sequence managed by a cancel control of the dialog. The dialog can include a preview control operable to specify whether effects of interaction with the controls are to be previewed. The first command can be subject to the preview control, while the second command is not subject to the preview control. Distinguishing between the commands can involve performing the second command but not the first command when the preview control specifies the effects of interaction are not to be previewed.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine-readable medium tangibly embodying a software product that provides a dialog preview capability and comprises instructions operable to cause a machine to buffer and manipulate commands produced by dialog controls to provide the preview capability in a dialog including a preview control, wherein the dialog preview capability allows at least one of the commands produced by the dialog controls to be performed from the dialog independent of a current preview state in the dialog while retaining the at least one of the commands along with other commands in a command sequence managed by a cancel control of the dialog.

2. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the commands is performed by forwarding the at least one of the commands from a dialog command manager to an application command manager.

3. The machine-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the dialog command manager identifies the at least one of the commands to be performed from the dialog independent of a current preview state in the dialog based on one or more received null commands indicating the at least one of the commands are preview-independent.

4. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, comprising shared software routines including a dialog routine to provide the preview capability.

5. The machine-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the shared software routines comprise software routines in a dynamic link library shared by multiple software applications.

6. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein preview-independent commands are retained earlier in the command sequence than preview-dependent commands retained in the command sequence, irrespective of an order of receipt of the preview-independent and preview-dependent commands.

7. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the commands comprises commands of a child dialog.

8. A system comprising:

a processor operable to perform software routines; and

a machine-readable medium tangibly embodying shared software routines that include a dialog routine to provide a preview control operable to specify whether effects of interaction with a dialog are to be previewed during the interaction, wherein the dialog routine includes instructions that enable a subset of the interactions to be performed from the dialog independent of a current preview state in the dialog and instructions that cause the subset of the interactions to be undone if the dialog is cancelled.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the shared software routines comprise software routines in a dynamic link library shared by multiple software applications in the system.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the dialog routine comprises a dialog command manager that is installed if a dialog includes a preview control and that manages commands generated via the dialog based on whether received commands are subject to the preview control.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein commands that are not subject to the preview control are forwarded by the dialog command manager to an underlying application routine where the preview-independent commands are performed on a data model of the application irrespective of a current preview state of the dialog.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the dialog routine retains preview-independent commands earlier in a command sequence for the dialog than preview-dependent commands retained in the command sequence, irrespective of an order of receipt of the preview-independent and preview-dependent commands.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the subset of the interactions comprise interactions with a child dialog.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the dialog command manager identifies at least one of the commands to be performed from the dialog independent of a current preview state in the dialog based on one or more received null commands indicating the at least one of the commands are preview-independent.

15. A machine-implemented method comprising:

providing a dialog preview capability for a user interface; and

buffering and manipulating commands produced by dialog controls to provide the preview capability in a dialog including a preview control, wherein the dialog preview capability allows at least one of the commands produced by the dialog controls to be performed from the dialog independent of a current preview state in the dialog while retaining the at least one of the commands along with other commands in a command sequence managed by a cancel control of the dialog.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the at least one of the commands is performed by forwarding the at least one of the commands from a dialog command manager to an application command manager.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the dialog command manager identifies the at least one of the commands to be performed from the dialog independent of a current preview state in the dialog based on one or more received null commands indicating the at least one of the commands are preview-independent.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein providing the dialog preview capability comprises providing shared software routines including a dialog routine to provide the preview capability.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the shared software routines comprise software routines in a dynamic link library shared by multiple software applications.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein preview-independent commands are retained earlier in the command sequence than preview-dependent commands retained in the command sequence, irrespective of an order of receipt of the preview-independent and preview-dependent commands.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein the at least one of the commands comprises commands of a child dialog.